1. Here you will find official announcements and updates. These announcements are also linked in the Official SotA Discord server.
    We encourage comments from the community! To keep the announcements official, we ask that comment threads be created in the General forums for player input.

                                                 Thanks!

Q2 2016 Schedule Update

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Mar 31, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    Greetings Avatars,

    As we have stated previously, our goal is to once-per-quarter post an updated schedule for our monthly releases. Even though these goals will likely change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to provide you an updated roadmap periodically.

    Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and use it to iterate improvements. This continues to benefit the game, with sweeping changes like the switch over to use-based advancement. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority, but we require flexibility in our deliverables in order to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases, sometimes we push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

    The second quarter of 2016 is focused on getting Shroud of the Avatar to persistence for Release 32 on July 28, 2016 as outlined in my Final Wipe and Lot Selection Post, which in addition to discussing Final Wipe an Lot Selection also discusses which items will be in by July and which will come online afterwards. As we get closer to July, each release will focus more and more on polish and balance versus new content.

    As always, all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change as we adjust our designs based on direct feedback from you, our backers.

    RELEASE 29, April 28, 2016
    • Full Wipe: Once again, we are going to make some fundamental changes to item and quest architecture that require us to do a full wipe for Release 29. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please note that if you have been waiting to convert your purchases to store credits, this is your chance to do so as long as you do NOT log into the game once R29 goes live (which automatically claims the items and prevents conversion). NOTE: This is the last wipe before the final wipe in July.
    • Story: New scenes will appear in the regions of North Paladis, Midmaer, and Verdantis, including the city of Central Brittany which will appear in the game for the first time. At this point, the Love storyline will be playable from beginning to end and we will begin final polish on that storyline.
    • Lot Selection Sequence: The lot selection sequence process implemented and tested by players. Pacing for these initial tests will be very accelerated with lot selection windows being mere minutes versus a full 24 hours.
    • Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear.
    • Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements. We will also begin officially supporting Windows 10.
    RELEASE 30, May 26, 2016:
    • Story: The town of Valhold on the island of Norguard will appear in game and we will begin a final polish on the Novia overworld.
    • Multiplayer Economic Balance: A pass will be made through creature loot bundles, merchant pricing, property taxes, public vendor fees, harvesting rates, agriculture growth, crafting recipe ingredient amounts, and other factors to begin establishing an equilibrium for the multiplayer economy
    • Multiplayer Combat Balance: A pass will be made through combat skills, creature stats, player stats, advancement rates, zone difficulties, and other values to establish an equilibrium for multiplayer combat.
    • Single Player Offline: The first Single Player Offline specific features will become available to players in the form of Save Games and Companions.
    • User Interface Polish: Various aspects of the user interface will be refactored and upgraded for visuals and usability
    • Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear.
    • Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements. We will also be adding DX11/12 support for Windows and OpenGLCore for Linux and OSX.
    RELEASE 31, June 30, 2016
    • Story: The dungeon of Artifice on the island of Elysium will welcome pilgrims for the first time, and the Courage storyline will be playable from beginning to end for the first time.
    • New User Experience Polish: Final polish passes will be done on the Tutorials, hints, and starting scenes.
    • New Female Avatar: A complete overhaul of the female avatar, including a completely new sculpt and skin texture.
    • Service Hardening: We will begin a series of passes through the client, authentication, and server to harden the service for security and customer service. Special attention will be paid to the Patcher.
    • Single Player Offline Combat Balance: A pass will be made through the game to adjust combat balance for play in offline mode with companions.
    • Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear.
    • Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements.
    We continue to be incredibly thankful for the support we receive from this amazing community. While the funding you provide makes all of this possible, it pales in comparison with the faith you have in us, the feedback you provide us, and the content you are making for everyone to enjoy. We are humbly grateful, and we cannot wait to see you again in New Britannia!

    Before I go, I wanted to include an excerpt from my original post about our Early Release Schedule that is important to set the framework for our ongoing schedule:

    As a crowd funded and crowd sourced project, we feel it is incredibly important that we provide our backers with information and access well before game studios would normally do so in a traditional development model. Traditionally, the players are given information and access only after the development team has already decided exactly how things will be done, and at times, even after it has already been implemented. By the time the public normally has access to the product, there is usually no time to meaningfully react to the public feedback.

    Shroud of the Avatar is different than the traditional model, as we intend to offer our backers extremely early access to information and even the game itself. With that said, we also want to be very careful that we only provide access to portions of the game when they are ready for a wider range of feedback. If we can play it internally and we know it is not ready, then there is nothing to be gained by having a wider audience come to the same conclusion. In fact, it could be quite damaging to do so.

    Our strategy over the next few months is to provide you with focused and iterative releases of content. Your feedback during these releases will be critical to making the final product the best it can be, and we appreciate that you are all so willing to devote your time to helping us. With each release, we will have specific tests we will ask you all to make. As we get closer, we will send instructions on how to download, install, report bugs, etc. After each release we will review the results and reevaluate the plan including the duration of availability of each release. Please note that game data will be wiped periodically during early access.

    It is important to note that all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change.

    Sincerely,

    Starr Long
    Executive Producer
    Shroud of the Avatar
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2016
  2. agra

    agra Avatar

    Messages:
    1,501
    Likes Received:
    3,489
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It's great to see this, Starr, but.. there's no mention here of how the additional new 7000+ NPC/PRT pledge lots required (6154 + 30%) are going to be introduced into the game prior to R32.

    Is this part of the current design, or will it be implemented during R32 dynamically, or what's the plan?
     
  3. Lord_Darkmoon

    Lord_Darkmoon Avatar

    Messages:
    4,350
    Likes Received:
    14,680
    Trophy Points:
    153
    If the love storyline can be played through in next release does this mean that all quest mechanics are done?
     
    Sir Cabirus and smack like this.
  4. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    you mean like the line item that appears in every release under Player Towns that says "and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia."?
     
  5. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    Shouldn't you link to the topic with the Before permanence / After permanence feature list?
     
  6. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    You mean like I did in the opening section?
     
  7. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    Not quite. There are some mechanics specific to the Truth and Courage storylines that won't be online by then
     
  8. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    :p
    It was the lot selection bit that threw me. Thought it was some linking to some other topic.

    Edit:
    Hmm. If that threw someone like me then you might want to add a sentence about there being such a feature list in that link. Since the paragraph with that link makes it appear to talk about something else.
     
  9. Selene

    Selene Avatar

    Messages:
    3,106
    Likes Received:
    11,697
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Serpents Watch Brewery!!
    Waaaaaah, no new female Avatar Until June... :(

    I am excited to see how the lot claiming system works, though!! I'll try and get the day off so I can play along. :)

    Looking forward to every release that brings us closer to persistence!!!
     
  10. Mitch [MGT]

    Mitch [MGT] Avatar

    Messages:
    489
    Likes Received:
    1,042
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    Wow guys...seriously READ his post before trying to pick it apart...
     
  11. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    15,646
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Omaha, NE
    This is a great post and I'm very excited for what I'm seeing.

    I know the plan throughout development has been to be fairly agile and you've only committed to quarterly posts like these, and tried to avoid giving dates for anything past that. But as we get closer to release, do you think we can revisit the Kickstarter specific stretch goals? I don't think they've been discussed much (if at all) since the Kickstarter. It might be nice to clarify the scope of those and how they will be implemented.

    Has the inclusion of PoTs altered the castle as a town type that guilds can own stretch goal? I know town sieges have been delayed, but the only description we've seen on those has been an NPC siege and the KS stretch goals suggested their might be full PvP war.

    Will dungeons like Rise by the primary component of the Underworld stretch goal, or might there be more, such as underground towns?

    Will all the KS goals be delivered in Episode 1's timeframe still, such as the theater system?
     
    Miracle Dragon likes this.
  12. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    ok added this: ", which in addition to discussing Final Wipe an Lot Selection also discusses which items will be in by July and which will come online afterwards." Let me know if that clears it up.
     
  13. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    6,692
    Likes Received:
    45,560
    Trophy Points:
    202
    Gender:
    Male
    I understand and hear the request but at this time we are not prepared to discuss this. We really need to stay focused on what we are currently working on. Thank you for your undersrtanding.
     
  14. Sean Silverfoot

    Sean Silverfoot Avatar

    Messages:
    2,646
    Likes Received:
    7,257
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Hudson Valley area of NY
     
  15. Lord Andernut

    Lord Andernut Avatar

    Messages:
    3,340
    Likes Received:
    10,087
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    New Britannian Market
    I'm really looking forward to Central Brittany next release! Though I'm not seeing the other sections of it in the notes.

    The next 3 releases don't seem all that "meaty" but I know all the polish and performance and balancing is really needed for launch Final-Wipe.

    Oddly enough it's the post-wipe schedule I'm most interested in now :p
     
  16. Mitch [MGT]

    Mitch [MGT] Avatar

    Messages:
    489
    Likes Received:
    1,042
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    +1 to Central Brittany FOR SURE!

    I noticed the lack of "meat" as well but I suspect that content will be added quite regularly leading up to Final Wipe and a focus on polish and performance is definitely appreciated.

    And yes, the post-wipe schedule will be a DOOZIE!
     
    Duchess Fionwyn likes this.
  17. Selene

    Selene Avatar

    Messages:
    3,106
    Likes Received:
    11,697
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Serpents Watch Brewery!!
    Just don't grab me by the gills, Sean!!! :D:D:D
     
  18. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

    Messages:
    4,289
    Likes Received:
    7,415
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caladruin
    Any next iteration of spell weaving system combos in 2Q? Or will this work happen after R31? Curious from a future character build choice perspective.
     
  19. ThurisazSheol

    ThurisazSheol Avatar

    Messages:
    2,309
    Likes Received:
    3,988
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    The Drowned Mountains
    i would like to see some sort of rough schedule for when other biomes will be completed, so those of us who do not yet have the biome we really want yet, can expect to be able to lock our forms.
     
  20. Abydos

    Abydos Avatar

    Messages:
    1,827
    Likes Received:
    3,862
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Québec, CAN
    After many years of development, I cant wait for 28 july !
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.